


the rush of blood

by cursebreakker



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angsty Open Ending, Canon Universe, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Forbidden, No Pregnancy, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Shameless Smut, gratuitous use of lord and lady, no comdoms in prythian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 22:41:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30113127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cursebreakker/pseuds/cursebreakker
Summary: a special, frail moment shared between elain and azriel in her garden.
Relationships: Elain Archeron/Azriel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 65





	the rush of blood

**Author's Note:**

> hi 😈
> 
> enjoy, my loves.
> 
> PS: if you don't ship elriel click away because you're not going to like what i've written below. spare us both the pain, and don't leave mean comments to a gal that's just minding her own business and shipping what makes her happy ((:

Azriel had been in need of some peace and quiet. Tensions were high amongst the Courts after the war, Autumn had its own nefarious plans and the Human Queens were brewing something in their own territory. Rhys was worried, not only him but their allies too. No one expected another conflict so soon after the war with Hybern. 

His work had been doubled, he had needed to re-organize his spy network so he could gather the most information from the Courts causing trouble. Rhys’s last mission for him had been a reconnaissance trip to the Autumn Court, where every russet shade of leaves in the trees made him think about a certain male currently working with an exiled Human Queen. Which, in turn, made him think about the female who carried his scent gently underlining her own. 

It was too much. He couldn’t get the middle Archeron sister off of his head, no matter how hard he tried. The spymaster knew she wasn’t for him, but his heart didn’t care about reason where she was concerned. 

He made his way to the river house, her garden flourishing with new life from the change of seasons and she was, as expected, kneeling amongst her hard work when he landed just a couple feet away from her. She looked up, sunhat partly obscuring her face but he could see enough to identify the small smile that touched her lips at his arrival. 

Azriel forced himself to strangle the sliver of hope blooming in his chest. She wasn’t for him and her happiness was that of a friend greeting another. Nothing more. 

“Lady.” He offered a perfunctory nod.

Elain lifted one hand covered in dirt. He almost smiled at the sight. 

“Are you here to see Rhys?” She asked, returning her hands to where they’d previously been digging at the earth. “I think he took Feyre somewhere else.”

Azriel was aware of Rhys’s absence. Today was the anniversary of Feyre’s first arrival at the Night Court, no doubt he’d taken her to their cabin in the mountains or someplace else to _celebrate_. The spymaster didn’t say anything, only took one step closer. 

She returned her eyes to the garden, overlooking the budding flowers. “I’m afraid it’s just me and the flowers for company today.”

“That’s plenty enough,” he told her. 

Elain’s smile almost knocked the wind from his lungs. “You’re too kind.”

He couldn’t tell her she was the reason he’d come in the first place. She thought of him as a friend and he liked to believe he was doing a good job fulfilling that particular role, but if he told her sometimes he only flew to the river house to see her and nobody else—it would be too easy to see through his façade. 

“I speak the truth, my lady.” He knelt by her side, watching as she ripped vines from her garden and re-worked the earth around the exposed roots. “I appreciate the quietude of your company.”

She glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. “Do you?”

He nodded, face becoming serious. 

Elain gave a little laugh, the sound trickling down his spine and curling around his lower abdomen. “I thought I’d bore you.”

Azriel almost protested too quickly, but he managed to hold his retort back to emulate some sense of self-control. “It’s clear you’re not aware of the pleasure your company inspires in others, my lady.”

“Pleasure, you say?” She gave him a gentle smile, with just a touch of mischief. 

“Yes,” he answered. 

Her eyes traveled over his face, then studied the arches of his wings which are firmly tucked behind his back. She said, in a low voice, “Where are your shadows?”

His head spinned, did she know the effect that voice has on him? “Pardon?”

“Your shadows,” she segued, cleaning her hands on the apron tied around her hips. “I’ve noticed they have a tendency of going away when you’re with me.” He swallows hard, looking away. “Are they—do they fear me?”

His eyes snapped back to her face. “Why would you think that?”

She shrugged. “I’m Made. I’m an unnatural stain in this world,” she commented airily as her eyes travel over the garden. “Maybe they sense something bad in me.” 

He frowned. She believed that? “I can assure you that’s not it, my lady.” Taking a deep breath in, he decided to let her know a small part of his secret, just a little bit. Just so she wouldn’t think there was something wrong with her. “Your presence soothes me. My shadows stay away because they don’t sense any threats to my person when I’m in your company.” She stared at his face, her doe eyes wide with surprise. “They trust you.”

“That is—” She began saying, but cut herself off with a shake of her head. “I’m happy to hear it.”

The spymaster looked away from her face, he could barely contain the urge to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her delicately arched ear. Her presence was both soothing and torturous for this precise reason, but he’d rather be by her side than anywhere else right then. 

A welcome, companionable silence fell between them. Elain turned her attention back to her flowers as Azriel contented himself to just sitting there, sunning his wings and breathing in the flowers’ scent mixed with hers. 

After a while, he must have dozed off because he woke up with Elain’s hand touching his shoulder. Azriel should have been startled awake, used as he was to always be on guard, but somehow his body knew there was no danger where he currently was. He could unwind and appreciate the company. 

The sun rimmed her in golden light, her hairdo almost completely ruined by gravity as some of the longer tresses fell from the knot at the back of her head. She’d taken off her sunhat, he realized. She looked like a vision, straight out of his darkest and most secret fantasies. 

“Lord Azriel?” That title he didn’t deserve coming out of her rosy lips. It did something to him, awakened a slumbering beast that he’d tried so hard to keep locked away. 

Sleepiness clung to him like vines, pulling him under the earth. He watched as if trapped in a dream as his hand reached out and touched her cheek, where a stripe of dirt stained her otherwise unblemished skin. His scarred hand against her porcelain flesh was an ugly contrast, it immediately ripped him out of this out-of-body experience. A rude awakening. 

But when he tried to remove his hand, her much smaller one wrapped around his fingers keeping his palm firmly placed against her heating cheek. 

She was blushing. 

He didn’t say anything, neither did she. This moment was too frail, too special to be broken by clumsy dialogue. Azriel’s fingers traced the side of her face, she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. He could feel his heart beating faster, his breaths frozen in his lungs. 

Elain’s body folded over his, arms framing the sides of his torso. He could feel her breasts brushing against his Illyrian leather, and he could only wish that there was no barrier keeping their skins from touching. Azriel cupped the back of her head, bringing her face closer to his and her ragged breathing matched the rise and fall of her chest. 

The smell of her arousal lingered in the air like sweet, sticky pollen. 

Her brown eyes remained close as their lips came inches from each other. Their breaths mingling together, contributing to charging the sliver of space between them with tension. A chord being stretched taut, capable of breaking whenever the stretch was too much. 

He could only savour this moment, relish in the way her small body seemed to mold against his. Azriel’s other hand snaked down her back, pulling her close—impossibly so. He watched as her eyes fluttered open, then hardened with resolve. 

The chord broke. 

Her lips crashed down on his. The spymaster’s head was spinning, he could only _feel_. Elain’s lips were soft and pliant, she took a sharp intake of breath when she felt him turning their positions over. Now, his body covered hers and his wings kept her face in shadows. 

She opened her legs willingly and he settled himself between her parted thighs, relishing the way they fit together. His cock was straining against his pants, eager to rub against her heated core. He was almost consumed by lust, kissing her as if he was a starved man and she was a meal he couldn’t wait to devour. 

In a way, that rang true. He felt like he could consume her whole.

His hands crawled up her legs, pushing her dress up. Azriel felt a sense of urgency to touch her, as if to confirm this wasn’t a dream. Her skin was soft, warm. He buried his face on her neck, breathing in her scent—gasping when his fingers reached the place between her legs.

Azriel pulled back to look into her eyes, they were clouded over with need. 

His fingers rubbed against her center, extracting a soft sound from her lips. 

He slithered down her body, wanting to see for himself. She whined in protest when his hands turned her skirt upwards, exposing her entire lower half to him. Elain was still in her drawers, but they were easy enough to work around since they were opened at the crotch area. And she was positively dripping with want, her lower lips as pink as the color in her cheeks. 

Without a second thought, he dove between her legs. She let out a strangled cry as his lips closed over the sensitive nub he knew made females crazy with lust. One of his fingers worked its way inside her cunt, feeling her warm walls close around his digit was a marvelous sensation. Just as marvelous as having her sweet essence coating his tongue. 

His hips thrust against the ground, searching for friction to release his own tightly coiled want. 

But he would have her utterly ruined first. He couldn’t hold back now.

Her fingers found their way to his hair, pulling at his roots. The pain was a much needed reminder that this was not a dream, this was happening and he was the luckiest bastard in the world. 

Azriel felt her approaching her release, tiny gasps leaving her mouth and hips undulating under his mouth’s ministrations. He inserted another digit inside her tight channel, curling his fingers up to touch an unnamed spot that made her scream his name.

_AzrielAzrielAzrielAzriel_ — 

She chanted, the sweetest music he’d ever heard. 

He crawled up her prone and spent body, still trembling from the waves of pleasure rocking through her. Elain’s sighs were swallowed by his mouth, just as he aligned the tent in his pants to her center. Their tongues touched, the taste of her arousal now being mixed with the taste of her mouth making him breath in sharply. 

His hips moved on their own accord, thrusting up and rubbing his cock all over her cunt. He could feel her wetness seep through the material of his pants, promising blissful heat to envelop his shaft. 

Elain pulled him closer by hooking her legs behind his knee joints, her hands working on the leather straps keeping his pants fastened. He let her do the work, loving the way her fingers brushed against his erection on their rush to free his cock from its restraints. 

She was just as desperate as he was. 

Once he was finally free, her slender fingers closed around his width and he watched as her eyes widened in surprise. She didn't need to speak what was so clearly evident in her expression. Azriel smirked cockily before kissing her again, gentler this time. 

Her hand worked on him for a few moments before he couldn't take the torture any longer and lined his cockhead to the entrance of her cunt. She sighed, hands falling to the ground beneath her grabbing fistfuls of earth when he started driving into her. Inch by inch. 

They kept eye contact throughout the slow insertion of his shaft into her waiting heat. Elain moaned when he bottomed out, legs crossing at his back. 

" _Please_ ," she breathed. 

He didn't need any more encouragement. 

Azriel pulled out and drove back in, establishing a punishing pace. She didn't seem to mind—no, her eyes rolled to the back of her head. 

The spymaster held her close to his body, his arms supporting her weight. Her own arms wrapped around his neck, the tip of her fingertips tickling the very edge of his wings. His hips bucked, teeth sinking into the lower flesh of his lips to keep from making an embarrassingly needy noise. 

Elain touched his wings again, eyes glazed over with lust but a hint of mischief peeked through. _She knows_ , he thought as he drove into her. 

If she kept touching his wings—

Her fingers _scratched_ lightly against the membranous skin, and it was his undoing. He finished embarrassingly fast, pumping a couple more times until all his spend is coating her inner walls white. 

The fingers that'd been teasing his wings found the back of his head, tickling his scalp. He felt it all the way down to his lower back, involuntarily thrusting his hips forward. The noise that escaped her mouth is a mixture of pleasure and joy, a moaned laughter that had his cock stir awake for a second round. 

He tensed. The reality of their situation dawning on him. 

He was balls deep into his High Lady's sister. She has _a mate_. Azriel felt cold seep into his veins, fear and apprehension gripping his throat in a vise. He could have ruined everything—

Elain's hand cupped his cheek, turning his eyes back to her lovely face now frowning at his detached behavior. He can see the question forming in her head, the words ready to spring free from her tongue. 

A tongue he knew intimately now. 

He shook his head, dispersing that thought away. Then, he pulled out of her heated embrace and tucked his flaccid cock back into his pants all while avoiding looking at her. 

Her hand closed around his forearm. "My lord?" 

It was the hurt in her voice that sent a shard through his heart. "I'm sorry for my behavior, my lady." 

Her golden hair was free from its knot, the tresses streaming down her shoulders almost as if mocking him— _see, you can only look and not touch_. 

"I don't understand," she said, her eyebrows linking together. "Come back." At this, she pulled on his wrist. 

He gently pried her fingers away. Shooking his head. "I'm sorry, my lady. You deserve someone better than me." 

She stared at him with wide, doe eyes. Apparently he had rendered her speechless. He could smell her confusion, see the sadness in the downturn of her lips. 

She'd be confused now, but in the future she would thank him for stepping away. Elain was too much for him, way more than he could ever hope—he didn't deserve her. 

All he could see was his scarred hand against her cheek, how starkly they contrasted. Clearly wrong for each other. How many males had those hands killed? How many bones had they broken in search for information? 

He wasn't right for her. 

And he'd proven as much by rutting into her like an animal. Proving he couldn't control his urges and darkest desires. 

Before she could protest any more and break his already weak resolve, he turned to leave and shot into the skies. He didn't look back as the river house became a small dot in the scenery. 

He felt dread creeping into his chest. 

If her mate ever found out what they'd done—

Azriel shuddered, shaking his head. They couldn't lose Lucien's support in the human realms, he was a very much needed piece of the Night Court's web of information. 

He'd been careless, ruled by lust instead of by reason. 

He needed to put some distance between them. For the sake of their entire Court. Azriel couldn't risk putting everything in the line once more. 

For everyone's sake, what transpired between him and Elain needed to remain a one time thing and most of all: a secret. 

His own, very deliciously forbidden secret. 


End file.
